


Static

by soundingsea



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Genre: Character of Color, Chromatic Character, F/M, POV Female Character, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:Lozlan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundingsea/pseuds/soundingsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's pretty sure Captain Hammer isn't the reason Billy has this rep of never going home with the same girl twice. Might have something to do with the rage issues, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Static

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lozlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lozlan/gifts).



> Thanks to my betas: spiralleds, for reading draft after draft, and ironchefjoe, for the fanboy perspective.

It takes Anna a couple minutes to figure out where she is. Her bedroom never gets this much sun. And instead of a hungry cat kneading the pillow, LA's most eligible spikey-haired blond guy is asleep next to her. She sits up, head spinning and mouth dry. Right. Club ELE. Way too many whatever-tinis. And in her most ass-kicking coup ever, back to his apartment.

Lair, Anna reminds herself. Supervillains have lairs. Before he has a chance to wake up, she grabs her clothes off the floor and heads for the bathroom. She slips into her skinny jeans and tries her t-shirt inside out. No good; the screen-printing shows through. That stabbing sensation in her thigh explains where her hoop earrings are. She leaves them in her pocket; too early for hand-eye coordination. Her pony-tail holders are missing in action, so she splashes her hands with water and smoothes her hair, pushing her bangs back.

When she comes out of the bathroom, he's awake. More precisely, he's sitting up in bed and staring at her chest. She could pretend to be indignant, but his face is right there in a green octagon clashing with the turquoise of her shirt. She should have gone with Teresa's choice of purple. Just as embarrassing, but more color-coordinated.

"Hey," he says, blinking up at her. She's pretty sure he can't remember her name. Awkward. She knows he does this all the time; she so totally does not, but come on. She wasn't going to pass up a chance like this.

"Um. Can you autograph these?" She hands him her goggles, then rummages in her backpack for a Sharpie. "Right on the metal there, on the left side. To Anna." It's not creepy; she's doing him a favor. Now he knows her name.

"Anna." He sticks his tongue between his teeth as he signs _To Anna -- Dr. Horrible_. Pretty damn cute for someone in the Evil League of Evil who's supposed to strike dread into the hearts of all he meets.

"So, do you have a name? I mean, you weren't called Horrible on the playground. I hope." At his wary look she blurts out, "I'm not going to, you know. Blog about this, or anything." At least, not right away.

"I stopped reading, um, fan sites after 'does Dr. Horrible really long for Captain Hammer' made the rounds." It looks like he's about to say more, but instead he climbs out of bed (wearing boxers; no fun) and slips on a threadbare white lab coat.

Padding out to the kitchen, he calls back something muffled that maybe could be chili. For breakfast? Anna follows him and finds him with his head in the fridge. There's a newspaper clipping stuck on the door; looks like the letters page from the Midtown Metro-Journal. She sees something about the deputy mayor before he straightens up and opens the fridge further.

"It's Billy," he says. "I'd offer you breakfast, but my roommate moved out, and--" His gesture encompasses the fridge, the kitchen, the tragedy of existence.

"Billy." She repeats his name, because people supposedly like that, while resting a hand on his arm and looking over his shoulder into the fridge.

Pickles (ugh), beer (not so much), take-out containers. She ducks under his arm and examines the contents of one of the containers; a fuzzy greenish-white layer coats what was probably a perfectly reasonable (if inferior to her mother's) Pad Thai. Yuck. "Let me guess... you don't cook?"

"Can't remember the last time I was in a grocery store, other than when I was experimenting with my freeze ray."

"Does that actually keep stuff cold?" Inane question, but she's busy enjoying actually being in the space where he blogs. Pot-racks, bottles, tubes, dangling light bulb. Classic.

"No, that's Johnny Snow's thing. This stops time."

"Oh, right! At that shelter dedication last month--" Remembering how that event ended, she changes gears. "So, you just live on take-out? For every meal?"

"Food used to appear in the fridge," he says, suddenly motionless like the freeze ray's in her hands. "I guess Moist took care of it."

What kind of name is that? "And she's gone?"

Wrong question. He slams the fridge door shut and says, "I think you'd better leave."

* * *

That night, Anna leaves her goggles at home. She's not ready for the questions from Teresa and Matt; she doesn't want to dissect this Dr. Horrible encounter in the past tense. After the shelter dedication, they kept quizzing her about the feel of his gloved hand on her face. This would be a whole new level of sharing-time, and right now, it's just hers.

But she's not staying home when hitting Club ELE means she might run into Billy again. She wants her shot at being the It Girl, even if things didn't end so well for What's-Her-Name. Captain Hammer is yesterday's news, and Anna's smarter than that. She even feeds her cat, just in case.

Bartender says the League meeting's been going on for a while now. A sweaty guy sitting on a barstool looks up at her with a kicked-puppy grin.

"You waiting for somebody from the League? Me too." He gulps amber liquid from a lowball glass, clutching it through a damp napkin. "Have I seen you with Fury Leika? She scares me." He sets the empty glass on the bar. "More iced tea, please."

Pouring from a plastic pitcher into a new glass, the bartender switches out the drink. "You want a few more napkins, Moist?"

As the guy nods and then soaks those through, Anna takes the empty stool next to him.

"Hey. Moist, is it? My name's Anna. I've heard so much about you." And by so much, she means not nearly enough. Ah, opportunity.

"Sweet," Moist says, sitting up straighter. "I'm kinda a player in the Henchmen's Union now. Mostly work with Dr. Horrible. Well, I did. We need to... Wish he would get out of that meeting."

Anna tries her most wide-eyed and innocent look. "How can a horse enforce Robert's Rules of Order, anyhow? Does Bad Horse stomp a hoof to take the floor or something?"

"Just between you, me, and my iced tea, nobody but those cowboys has ever heard more than a blood-chilling whinny out of him." Moist leans in, and Anna moves back imperceptibly. She draws the line at some sidekick dripping on her. "He's a horsey figurehead."

"So, the Evil League of Evil isn't all it's cracked up to be?" She glances over at the meeting room door; still closed. "Why is Dr. Horrible in it?"

"Lots of costumes and networking opportunities, not much actual world domination. Now, if he would just listen to me--" Moist breaks off in mid-sentence; Fake Thomas Jefferson is stomping by, tricorne akimbo.

When Billy appears, red lab coat swirling around him, Anna slides off her barstool and catches his arm. "Look who's done plotting mayhem for the night," she coos. "I've just been having the most interesting conversation with your buddy here."

Billy doesn't seem at all happy about this turn of events. Good. Serves him right for throwing her out this morning.

Moist sidles up to Billy. "Hey, Doc. Hourglass and I are thinking that if you throw your hat in with us you'll lend us, you know, evil cred."

Billy looks like they've had this conversation one too many times. "After what getting into the League cost me, I'm not walking away. And I don't wear hats."

"It's a metaphorical hat," Moist explains. "The Black Hat Collective."

"Your girlfriend want you to grow a mustache so you can twirl it maniacally? Does she see a nice cozy future for the three of us?"

As Moist sputters, Billy storms out. Without another look at Moist (because really? That guy has a girlfriend?) Anna follows. Billy doesn't actually say anything to her, but once they're outside he slows his pace just a little. She takes that as an invitation.

The night's chilly, and the street is deserted except for a guy sleeping on a grating right down from the club. He was there last night too, come to think of it. Hey. Ice-breaker on a nice neutral topic.

"They say that the new Caring Hands shelter has been full every night since it opened last month," Anna says, shaking her head. "I wish there were something..." She doesn't know where she's going with that. Not her department.

"Even with a freeze ray you can only stop little bits of the world," Billy says. That makes pretty much no sense, and the paper-wrapped packet he slips into the homeless guy's overcoat makes even less.

"What was that?" Anna asks, craning her neck back at the guy. He's rousing himself and patting at his pockets.

"I just want him out of the way. Doesn't matter what Pen-- people would do. To help, I mean. I don't help people."

Maybe not. But that sure looked like bank-heist loot. Funny way to be evil.

 

* * *

They bring some Indian take-out back to Billy's place. He doesn't exactly invite her, but he doesn't tell her to leave him alone. Close enough.

 

The kitchen table is a workbench covered in solder and wire and what looks to be Play-Doh, and he apparently doesn't open the vault on the second date. So they sit on a scary 70s couch in front of the TV. It's one of those old standard-def sets that looks like furniture and is going to be obsolete in a few months. Not cable-ready; it's got rabbit ears.

"I don't watch TV," Billy says. "I mean, I didn't. Streaming broadcasts on my workstation, sure." He ladles some korma into his naan and eats it like a sandwich.

"I just like _Top Chef_ and _Project Runway_," Anna says. "Nothing that requires me to take notes." Her samosa is nicely crisp, and she makes a mental note to remember this restaurant. Not close to her place, but convenient to Billy's. Useful for if this becomes a thing. Which would, of course, be the plan.

"I get my news and stuff off the net," Billy explains in that hipster TV-justifying way, "but since Moist didn't take this when he moved out, I leave it on for noise."

"And noise you've got." She wrinkles up her nose at some terrible car dealership ad. "We get it. 'For the love of all that's good, buy our cars.' Do they have to be that loud?"

"Local commercials have lower production values, especially in sound quality. You don't have to re-record dialogue for a blog, or even mic the blogger, but the rules are different for TV..."

Billy trails off when Captain Hammer shows up in the next commercial, shilling for Vincent and Benson, Ambulance Chasers Inc. Okay, that's not their actual name. But it's clearly what they do. Weak.

Anna hopes Billy never saw her when she was in her Captain Hammer phase. "Ugh, that guy. Some of my friends used to be really into him. He sounds like he's mumbling into a tin can. Blah, blah, justice. Blah, blah, American way."

Billy throws the four-button remote at the rabbit ears and Anna swallows as Captain Hammer's face dissolves into static. Anna's pretty sure Captain Hammer isn't the reason Billy has this rep of never going home with the same girl twice. (And score; Anna's here for a second night!) Might have something to do with the rage issues, though.

"So, are you mad because he blamed you for killing his girlfriend?" It tumbles out before she can stop herself. Too late to turn back now.

"I did kill her," Billy says in a measured tone. Not bragging, not look-at-me-I'm-so-evil. Like somebody talking about something too big to comprehend. "Everything happens."

Anna's pulse races and her mouth tastes funny. She realizes that she's biting the inside of her cheek, and stops. Her palms are wet, and she tries to blot them unobtrusively on her jeans. Yeah, she remembers the headlines, the anchors crying. This is what evil does, she thought at the time. Feels different now.

She remembers what he said to her, that day when she first realized he was somebody. _I bring you pain, the kind you can't suffer quietly._

"And she wasn't supposed to be his girlfriend," he adds, forlorn. She's never seen anyone this sad, this lost.

Anna shakes off her fear and reaches around Billy with one arm; half a hug's better than none. She drops her forehead to his shoulder. He doesn't reach for her, but she wasn't expecting him to. Not yet.

They listen to static punctuated by silence.


End file.
